Coletti wins home sprint race

Stefano Coletti won the Monaco GP2 sprint race at his home circuit to extend his championship lead.

Coletti had to pass pole-sitter Adrian Quaife-Hobbs on track having started from third place, and eventually won from 1.8s from Quaife-Hobbs and Mitch Evans. It was Evans' second podium of the weekend as he came home just ahead of Felipe Nasr and James Calado, with the top five covered by 3.7s.

Rene Binder, Kevin Ceccon and Stephane Richelmi completed the points-scorers, with yesterday's race winner Sam Bird down in 24th place after having to pit with apparent tyre issues.

Quaife-Hobbs made a good start as Binder bogged down, and after yesterday's pile-up the field ran cleanly through Ste Devote. Evans dived up the inside of Calado in to Mirabeau for third, before Nasr passed Calado on the next lap at the first corner. After three laps, Coletti made the decisive move as he dived up the inside of a hesitant Quaife-Hobbs from a long way back in to the Nouvelle Chicane to take the lead.

Ceccon passed Bird in to the Nouvelle Chciane as well and after a lap later it became apparent that Bird had a problem and he had to pit. He rejoined a lap down with another slow lap, but recovered to set the fastest lap of the race - though he'll receive no points as he was outside the top ten.

It was a relatively clean race, but Jake Rosenzweig tapped Jon Lancaster in to a half spin at Loews, resulting in Lancaster dropping from P10 to P15 in two corners.

Coletti's win was the first by a Monegasque driver at his home race since Louis Chiron's grand prix victory in 1931, and while the closing laps saw Quaife-Hobbs holding off Evans and Nasr, the pole-sitter had learnt from his earlier caution and didn't offer an opportunity to those behind to secure his first ever GP2 podium.

Chris Medland is assistant editor at ESPNF1 Chris Medland, who in his youth even found the Pacific GPs entertaining, talked his way in to work at the British Grand Prix and was somehow retained for three years. He also worked on the BBC's F1 output prior to becoming assistant editor ahead of the 2011 season